On the road passing by Rebordões towards Santo Tirso, in the heart of Vale do Ave, there is a factory that explains well the storm that struck the textile and clothing industry (ITV) in the last 25 years. In this huge building right next to the village church, labored for 30 years yarn factory Figueiredo and Maia, who came to employ more than 800 workers. Today, this world of big wires quenched and the huge space of 32 thousand square meters is used for AML that, with its 42 employees, produces seven million euros annually fabrics that adjust the temperature of the human body react to sweating.
Between the past and the present, there is little in common. There is no longer the ancestral figure of the charge or the boss – in charge of the company’s Alexandra Araujo, a young 35-year degree in management, and Manuel Barros, a chemical engineer; there is no longer the deafening noise of the looms – just a background noise that gets lost in the immensity of the building; no longer just foreign customer orders that dictate the colors, sizes and fabrics. – today AML offers customers solutions developed and tested in their laboratories
Among this time the old wiring and the gift of AML have passed 25 years in the textile sector has been shaken of seismic proportions. About two thousand companies disappeared from the sector map that focuses in the districts of Braga (51% of companies) and Porto, leaving the landscape of Vale do Ave marked by huge buildings ghost who remember the 80s, the time when the textile was the most important industry of the country. Over a hundred thousand workers lost their jobs, reducing employment in the sector of 240 thousand people to about 123,000 last year. Turnover increased from 8600 million in 2001 to 6.2 billion in 2013. And the weight of the yarn production, fabric and clothing in all national exports rose from 30% in the early years of European integration to just over 10%.
After a quarter century of devastation, however, there are signs that something may be changing. “For the first time in many years, the sector failed to destroy jobs and may have even created jobs,” says Paulo Vaz, the Director-General of the Association of Textile and Clothing Industries of Portugal (ATP). For the third consecutive year, exports increased – this year until the third quarter, foreign sales grew 9.2%, a record for many years. Is the row of textile and clothing to give back to its deep crisis? Paulo Vaz thinks so. Braz Costa, who heads the influential Citeve, an industry research center, too. More cautious, Crispin Ferreira, Director-General of the flagship Lameirinho, a company specializing in home textiles, claims the status of those working for 37 years in the industry to ask for a little calm and wait for far more effective signs before entering into euphoria . The Strategic Plan for the sector horizon 2020 gives you reason: the most o ptimistic scenario, it is expected that in the years to disappear 800 companies and they expire more than 20 thousand jobs, although they point to an increase in exports to five billion euros.
With more or less optimism, there is at least reason to believe that the worst is over. Or, in other words, that the industry has pushed the euro costs, which put an end to currency devaluation policies adopted that always had to push exports and, more importantly, has already adjusted to the terrible impact of opening up Western markets to products Asian in 2005. The change, it was known, would have severe consequences on European industry. Italy lost half of employment in the sector and half of its share in the international market (today, in 5%). And in Portugal, the predictions of a study by Kurt Salmon Associates in 2000, which had the worst case the destruction of 106,000 jobs and 826 companies were overtaken by an even starker reality. But survived the most adapted species, a process of natural selection. . “The sector is nearly purged of inefficient and inadequate companies,” emphasizes Paulo Vaz
Examples of leading companies abound: Paul Oliveira SA has developed a fact you can wash in the shower for executives who go hotel to hotel, Domingos Almeida sells sheets that regulate their temperature in contact with the body. The Dielmar, Salsa, Impetus, the Onara or sports brands Lacatoni and Berg have created competitive products worldwide. The AML develops fabrics for shirts of the Red Bull drivers and Lameirinho is repeatedly winner of best supplier awards supplied by their customers.
The devastation that came from Asia
In order to understand what happened after 1990 and what is happening to go back in time. The textile in Vale do Ave comes from the Middle Ages to the production of flax and accelerated the industrial revolution, when several companies have settled on the river banks. In the last century, large companies prospered at the expense of family wealth accumulation within dynasties linked to local industry or under the influence of bankers as Arthur Cupertino de Miranda (the founder of the powerful Portuguese Bank Atlantic was Famalicão), which in the years 50 advocated massive investment in the modernization of an industry “tired by the incessant labor within 24 hours of each day of this last half-dozen years.”
Portugal’s accession to EFTA (European Free Trade Association) in 1960, opened doors to exports to the Nordic countries or England and created the fuse that led to the explosion of the sector. In 1973 ITV was worth 10.6% of exports. In the years after the instability -25 April the textile was one of the main sources of foreign exchange for the country. In 1986, on the eve of Portugal’s accession to the EEC’s exports amounted sector to 30% of the total.
But if the industry was great, was far from competitive. “We produced low quality and low price goods. Companies were poorly organized and had old and obsolete equipment, “recalls Costa Braz. Its success resulted from the transfer of capital and machinery Northern Europe, where economic modernization had referred the textile for archaism status. “At that time we were the ‘China’ in Northern Europe,” need Braz Costa. In Western Europe, sectors such as cotton spinning or basic clothing still just stand in paradise low wages that subsisted in Portugal. In the early 80s to Spain had already closed their textile chapter – reborn after the expense of the success of Inditex, which owns brands like Zara or Massimo Dutti, which today is the largest group in the sector. In Portugal, however, it was impossible to give up an area of the economy that was worth a third of the foreign trade of the country.
An opportunity
With the arrival of the first cycle of European funds for investment, opened up an opportunity. “The slogan, our first mission was to improve the quality,” says Braz Costa. The Special Program for the Development of Portuguese Industry (PEDIP), which had the Economy Minister Mira Amaral main mentor, directed much of its resources to the industry. The “quality” came into all the speeches and the purchase of machinery in all strategies. “The PEDIP investments were fundamental. In 2000 we had the world’s best machinery. We had everything that was good, “recalls Costa Braz. At that time, between 1992 and 2002 “Lameirinho invested EUR 100 million. We bought machines, we have created a modern wiring, installed cogeneration equipment to lower our energy costs, “recalls Slim Ferreira.
None of this, however, was able to avoid the first big wave of bankruptcies. In 1994 the PUBLIC did a big story in the sector to which he gave the title Valley Ave: the crisis came early . It was not necessary to wait for the announced liberalization of world trade, which would be confirmed at a summit in Marrakesh in 1996, so that the sector began to debug. Alexandra Araujo, who belongs to the fourth generation of a family of industrial, recalls the time when his parents said: “This has to be clean.” Companies installed in stairwells, where rampant child labor without capital or strategy to enter the race for the PEDIP, had no place in a country that wanted to be modern, where real wages grew every year. Were getting in the way.
While some companies died, other, more modern and forward-looking, such as AML, were born. Despite the dark clouds on the Ave, there was a widespread belief that technology and European funds were enough to give back to the crisis. Especially because in the late 90s, the textile lived glory years. Between 1998 and 2002 exports hit record highs, approaching the five billion euros – 500 million more than this year if they meet the best forecasts. In 1999 Lameirinho invoiced 100 million euros and was an empire that employed 1600 employees in an industrial perimeter in the heart of Pevidém, near Guimarães, equivalent to 20 football fields. He lived to a kind of calm that anticipated the storm.
In shock
yet before Europe fully liberalize imports from China, what would happen in 2005, the sharp fall in prices and a dramatic reduction of orders leaves businesses in shock. “Then around 2004/2005 customers came here and from one moment to the next, said: ‘We paid 2.65 euros per meter mesh for sublimation [printing] and now want to pay half if we will not buy from China ‘”recalls Alexandra Araujo. In 2005, the LMA loses 40% of its turnover. Within a year between 2005 and 2006, five hundred companies go bankrupt. More than ten thousand people lose their jobs following the closure or restructuring. The Lameirinho closes the operation of ASA, a historic company in the sector, and reduces its workforce from 1600 to 600 workers.
He had begun the long crossing of the desert. The LMA, which devoted its activity to the production of “functional mesh” sports and outdoor see from China to clients as Nike or Adidas. The first temptation was to drop prices to resist as much as possible the “Chinese juggernaut” that as recalls Paulo Vaz, within a decade increased its share in the global textile market of 10 to 33%. “We had to be much more efficient to can lower prices,” says Manuel Barros, Director-General of AML. In business and associative domes of the sector, however, it was known that this effort was not enough. Had to change everything, or almost. In strategy, management, customer relations, production, logistics, innovation. “We could not do more of it,” says Manuel Barros. “We had to survive. After we restructured in 2004, we positioned ourselves in a medium / high segment, leaving the Asians the lowest part of the chain, “expl ains Crispin Ferreira.
Between 2005 and 2010 the sector accumulated negative indicators. Were the years of adjustment. The LMA diversified its product offering, began working for the footwear or the automotive industry. Bet on certification, invested in equipment, set up laboratories that analyze fiber strength, the light fastness, the reaction to humidity, dimensional stability or the peeling (propensity to generate lint) stitches. Became capable of producing a fabric with three surfaces comprising a membrane that opens when a cyclist breathes and closes when low body temperature. The Lameirinho no longer a mere executor of external orders and is dedicated to develop, produce and offer packaging complete ranges of sheets or tablecloths whose quality and feel to the touch even the most lay people can understand. “We, today, have developed the product, we present the fact to the customer. The main change in the last ten years is that we spent to create a concept, “Crispin Ferreira needs.
The looms accelerate again
After the first shock waves, the textile begins to realize its assets. “Companies today have endured a level of efficiency comparable to what is best made in the world. They knew they had to flee the price of curse and a largely succeeded, “notes Paulo Vaz. The creation of Selectiv Fashion in 2001 led thousands of companies to specialty fairs worldwide, with the support of European funds – this year’s investment in the promotion round nine million. The production technology has been updated. Two research centers with 150 experts can generate 20 annual patents, are able to invent fabrics that clean themselves or fibers for socks that record the body pressure or the number of steps of a race. In their laboratories make up tests with nanotechnology or intelligent materials. The fact that within a 50 kilometer radius around Famalicão be a cluster Industrial integrating the entire pr oduction chain is an advantage “that only Portugal and Italy” have, note Paulo Vaz. That also allows the control of the different stages of the cycle, saves companies to long waits for imported products and gives them an important asset:. The fast delivery of orders
“We have a lead time [delivery time] unbeatable. In two or three weeks the order is placed anywhere in Europe, “says Paulo Vaz. In an era in which speed the creation of ranges or replacement stocks is a crucial factor, the Portuguese industry achieves a comparative advantage over Asian competitors. The Spanish Inditex realized the importance of responsiveness and made Portugal one of its main production base.
With more organized companies, with intuition and experience of entrepreneurs of the old guard together with the technical expertise of managers and new generation of engineers, the industry is again on international routes of the textile. Apart from its tradition, the country offers science, innovation, product certification and sustainable industry from an environmental point of view. Many of the customers who left the country for ten years or more are back. “Now the big brands are returning. Adidas, for example, returned in force. Our company was very quiet and has become a stampede with foreigners visiting us and we want to know, “confirms Alexandra Araujo. China, once the damn word that explained bankruptcies and unemployment left to rule
“But make no mistake: the cotton and the commodity , ie the textile not has nothing special, they went to China and no longer return, “says the managing director of AML. Sérgio Marques, Director-General of Parfois, a company of Porto with 500 own and franchise stores in 50 markets explains in an interview with Textile Journal , the reasons that drive them to make their collections in China: “In Portugal we do not have production capacity of this product gender, because domestic producers followed a path that is correct, they have a more expensive product with finest materials. But we can not make the prices that Parfois practice “.
Found a new direction, confident that, as happened in the shoe, you can turn in a short time a traditional industry a leading player returned. “The made in Portugal sells,” says Crispin Ferreira. Visitors to the factory Lameirinho is to see why. The industry’s survival of the revenue required science, planning, rigor and effort and especially resistance. “This is a very painful sector,” agrees Paul Vaz.
No comments:
Post a Comment